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Pandora Woodcut series

byAdam McLean

Hardcover, Dust Jacket

Linen cover with full-color dust jacket and flaps

US $27.21

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About the Book

Early in the 1970s I found a complex series of eighteen woodcuts which were printed in Hieronymus Reusner's 'Pandora', Basel, 1582. A few years later I came across some reproductions of a manuscript earlier than the Reusner, so it became obvious to me that he must have drawn on this for his woodcuts. This was 'Das Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit' (The Book of the Holy Trinity) which later I realised was the first illustrated German alchemical manuscript, being dated to the early 15th century 1410-1430. It is unclear to me whether these notes on the woodcuts drew from the Book of the Holy Trinity or were merely Reusner's own observations on the imagery, but in the absence of a translation of the manuscript, this does at least allow us to touch, however tangentially, on its substance.

Features & Details

Adam McLean, is a well known authority on and enthusiast for alchemical texts and symbolism, the editor and publisher of over 60 books on alchemical and Hermetic ideas. Based in the UK, he has been writing and researching alchemical and hermetic literature for many years.
Between 1978 and 1992 he edited the Hermetic Journal and during those years he also began publishing the Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, the important series of forty one editions of key source texts of the hermetic tradition. In 1995, when the internet became more widely available, he began to construct the alchemy web site in order to make alchemical ideas more accessible to the wider community. It is now recognised as the most important internet resource on alchemy.
McLean is a great researcher and has often discovered, buried in libraries and specialist collections, important texts, both in printed books and manuscripts, which have been neglected. In 1999 he began to produce a series of in-depth study courses